My name is Lee Elbaz , I am 44 years old. I am Israeli citizen.
I was arrested in 2017 for conspiracy to commit a wire fraud and I am currently serving a sentence term of 264 months.
I am a single woman that dedicated my life to success and this landed me in prison.
I have already served 70 months in prison on top of 23 months in a strict house arrest.
My family , friends and support system are in Israel, and that has resulted in extremely hard and lonely prison sentence.
I grew up and raised in Israel by my parents that are law abiding citizens, who raised me to follow the law ,rules, my values, dignity and morals.
I have 2 amazing siblings and 7 nephews and nieces that some of them were born during my prison sentence.
After high school I served the military .
While growing up I wanted to be a lawyer , I love the law and the structure. Unfortunately , it been changed when the Bank I worked for required a relevant degree to secure my position and to be able to get promoted I signed up for Business and Economy degree. For various reasons I didn’t complete my B.A.
I moved on to the private market. I was hired as an education counselor , and assisted adults that showed interest in the finance market and want to be a traders. I became fascinated with trading. I participate in every class and even started to trade as well . After 2 years I started to take part in the teaching area. my boss was one of the teachers. He taught Forex Exchange.
In my past I worked for 4 different finance schools and moved up the ladder to management Positions as the school manager. I also worked as a HR manager.
In 2014 I accepted an offer to work again for the same person I worked for years . I started as a team leader and I was excited for the opportunity.
With time,my title grew and my responsibilities declined (I didn’t see the red flag.) Even though I wasn’t fully qualified for the position, mostly lack of experience and the language barrier.
The government accused me to be the one that managed all operations, which was not true. I managed one branch.
In 2017, I came to the United States to visit a friend that was fighting cancer and I got arrested at the airport.
Misguided I went through a long trial. I pled not guilty. The jury convicted me on all counts.
For many years I didn’t accept my verdict, I insisted that I am not guilty. Over the years while I was in prison, I neglected myself, I parted away from my faith and lost hope.
Then I decided to change. I worked on my English because I needed to be able to advocate for myself and work with my lawyers to point the wrongs. I participated in more classes even that I am not earning FSA credits. I started to read books in English when I was not fully understanding the context, when I did my homework I asked for help in correcting my spelling mistakes and learned from that.
The prison I was at offered college classes, I applied and was one of the selected inmates. I made it with straight A’s and I started to believe in myself again. I also took correspondence classes and learned more. I volunteered in the education department, assisting other females to earn their GED.
My growth started 2-3 years into my incarceration’s. I changed, I became positive and grateful, I started to advocate for myself and tried to empower others as well. I maintained clear conduct, I learned that I am resilient, strong, talented and I started to work on my freedom by setting goals and planning my future.
I understand today and take responsibility for my crime, although I didn’t have any intent to commit a crime or hurt others. It doesn’t change the fact that people got hurt. I was morally wrong. I didn’t understand a lot of things at the time of my trial. It is my belief that I was part of this crime due to my low self esteem and the need to feel worthy.
I am guilty in negligence, I held a position for which I was not qualified.
I used to be a weak person, a people pleaser that just wanted to be like by others. I am still working on myself, I learned self love and I am not mistaking it with selfishness anymore. I humbled myself and learned that NO! is a full sentence.
I got close to God again. I am fixing my crown every morning because I am a queen, the daughter of kings of kings. I am also taking correspondence classes and I am challenging myself out of my comfort zone by reading self help, business, history and biographies books.
I am setting goals and working on my release plan.
I currently participating in the FIT(Female Integrated Treatment) program. I am improving my communication skills, improving my vocabulary with new words every day. I am learning criminal thinking errors. I am learning to hold myself and others accountable even when it is hard.
I believe that all these skills will assist me upon release to be a law abiding, contributing citizen.
Prison does not define who I am and who I want to be, all I focus on now is my future success.
I hope to still be able to find the love of my life and build a family together.
